Snape's Return
by Pasi
Summary: How Dumbledore recruited Snape. Written prior to OotP


Snape's Return

     "James Potter, my lord?  ....You'll have to kill him."

     "Voldemort.  Yes, he has a name, like anyone else.  Why not say it?  And he values werewolves, cherishes them.  If you could join him, he'd make you happy.  You would finally be happy."

     Then the screaming came on, as it always did.  "No, please, no!  I won't, I won't . . ." spiraling off into shrill, wordless sound.  It went on and on, until, in an agonizing inward blast of white-hot light, both torturer and tortured broke.  The screams faded into senseless babbling:

     "Ring-around-a-rosie, a pocket full of posy, ashes, ashes, we all fall down!  Ashes, ashes, ashes, ashes!"

--And laughter.

Severus Snape snapped awake.  Wide awake, as he always did at that point in the nightmare, when Sylvia MacGregor started laughing.  He didn't want to see again what came next.  Once had been enough.

     "Stop it," Snape muttered.  In one motion, he threw the bedclothes aside, swung his legs over the side of the bed, sat up and hid his head in his hands.  His nightshirt was soaked with sweat, his palms and face were slick with it.  And, he saw when he lifted his eyes to the mantel clock, he was due at the staff table in the Hogwarts refectory in twenty minutes for breakfast.  He couldn't skip another meal and hold on to the hope that neither Pomfrey nor Dumbledore would notice.

     In fifteen minutes he was bathed and dressed in his master's robes, ready for another day of Potions classes and office hours, another evening of research in his tiny, quiet, torch-lit lab.  If he was lucky.

     Snape left his rooms and took the stairs two at a time, up from the dungeons of Slytherin House to the great, airy common hall that led to the dining room.

     There was Madame Pomfrey, with Flitwick, before the massive oak double doors.  Snape sidled toward a pillar, intending to hide behind it until she went inside.  She caught sight of him before he made it, though, and hurried over.

     "Severus, have you made your appointment for your annual physical--?"

     Madame Pomfrey stopped and, peering up in to Snape's face, gasped softly.  "Severus!  You look worse than ever!"

     Snape forced a grim smile.  "Thank you, Madame."

     Though she blushed for a moment, Snape's remark didn't stop her.  "You've lost more weight.  And you're paler than the castle ghosts.  Don't you realize you may be seriously ill?  You must have your physical.  As soon as I get back to the infirmary, I'll schedule it and send you an owl."

     A physical, where Snape would have to undress and put on an infirmary gown with sleeves that ended well above the elbows, where, along with the rest of his body, the inner aspect of his left forearm would be minutely examined . . . .

     Oh, no, no, no.

     "I'm deep in the titration of a fast-acting Polyjuice potion for an elite Ministry SWAT team," Snape said, and it was true enough.  "Perhaps I could get with you in a couple of weeks to arrange a time?"

     Madame Pomfrey's voice was gentle, even, Snape thought, frightened.  "You don't have two weeks."

     Before Snape could answer, the headmaster arrived, the doors to the dining hall opened and Madame Pomfrey disappeared into the line of students and teachers that surged in to breakfast.

     Snape toyed with his porridge for twenty minutes, spanning out his few and parsimonious bites so that it looked as though he was eating more than he did.  He was thirsty, though--very thirsty--and he drank two large mugs of tea.

     When breakfast was over and Snape was leaving the hall with the rest of the teachers to begin his day, he felt a hand touch his left forearm.  In a safe place, near the wrist, but still he started and whirled around.

     It was Dumbledore.  His eyes darkened with anxiety.  "I'm sorry, Severus.  I didn't mean to frighten you."

     Snape drew a breath.  "Not at all, Headmaster.  I'm the one who should apologize."

     "Ah, well.  I'm meeting with the Board of Governors this afternoon.  I was wondering if you might take tea with me afterward."

     Snape paused.  What was Dumbldore about?  He wasn't sure he wanted to know.  "I--"

     "Please."

     "All right, Headmaster."

     It came out sounding sour and reluctant, yet Dumbledore's face finally relaxed into a smile.  "Thank you, Severus.  My rooms, then, at four o'clock."

     "Yes, Headmaster."

     It was Monday, which meant Double Potions classes in the morning and afternoon, lectures and practica, second-year students in two sets of two hours apiece.

     Thank heavens he'd managed to schedule the worst combination, Gryffindor and Slytherin, for nine AM, so that he could get the torment over with early, before eleven o'clock break.

     What was it about Gryffindor, that the house produced a bumper crop of showoffs and loudmouths in every year?  Second year was no different.  Isaak Hansen and Moira Wycliffe led a gang of troublemakers who soon were giggling over a cauldron bubbling with steam and flashing cobalt-blue lightnings when the potion should have been thick, brown and simmering slowly.

     Snape felt a steam rising in him that matched that of the botched potion.  Damn Gryffindor from Potter and Black on down.  They were a part of everything that had gone wrong for him, everything that he had done wrong.

     Snape stalked quietly over to Wycliffe's and Hansen's table, looked down at the boy's blond curls, the girl's flame-red braids.  Their hands were pressed against their mouths to keep any sound from escaping, but their bodies shook with laughter.

     "No, Miss Wycliffe.  Not three drams of powdered salamander skin," Snape said icily.  "Three drops of spirits of tallowbark.  As you know very well."

     Both boy and girl whirled around and looked up at him.

     "Oh--oh, thank you, sir," Hansen stammered.  "We didn't know, we'll add the tallowbark right away--"

     Snape snaked one arm around Hansen and snatched the notebook that lay open before him on his desk, right beside the cauldron.  He read the potion receipt he'd assigned as homework on Friday.  Hansen's notes said nothing about adding powdered salamander skin to the mandrake-soothing potion the class was brewing today.  But Snape did see "spirits of tallowbark, three drops" at the very top of the list of ingredients.

     Snape tossed the notebook back down on Wycliffe's and Hansen's desk.

     "Twenty points off Gryffindor for each of you, for purposely ruining a potion."  Snape fixed Hansen with a cold stare.  "As for you, Hansen.  Fifty points off, and report to Mr. Filch after classes today for detention.  I don't know what you think you can get away with elsewhere.  But I do not tolerate lying in this classroom."

     And he didn't, except in himself.

     At last the day was over.  Snape couldn't remember ever longing for tea more than he did this moment, even though he feared the reason for his host's invitation.  Ever since Malfoy had told him that the Board of Governors had overruled Dumbledore's recommendation of Lysander Lee in order to appoint Snape as Potions Master, Snape had feared more than ever that he might make some misstep.  Add to that the ever-looming possibility that Dumbledore might find out who his true master was, and never again question why Snape couldn't sleep.

     No.  Wrong again.  Dumbledore was not the reason Snape couldn't sleep.

     He turned the corner into the conference rooms corridor, heading for the marble staircase.  He ran a hand through his hair, pushing a stray lock out of his eyes, and reached inside his robe to pull his watch out of his vest pocket.

     And still the end of the MacGregors' interrogation rang in his ears:  the screaming breaking down at last, parting like tributaries of a stream.  One branch, Mellitus's groans and throaty muttering.  The other branch, Sylvia's hiccoughing laughter and babbled nursery rhymes.

     And Malfoy between both broken Aurors, blond and beaming like an angel, his eyes gleaming as he bound Mellitus with wand-cords, letting Mellitus watch as he turned and approached Mellitus's wife, laughing, gibbering Sylvia. . . . .

     Snape blinked, stared down at the watch in his hand.  "Ten of four," he muttered, then stopped short as a body loomed before him.  Stopped short and looked up into the angelic, smiling face of a blond-haired, blue-eyed man.

     Gasping, Snape drew back a step.

     "Why, sorry, Severus.  Didn't mean to startle you."  Malfoy turned, gesturing at the open conference room behind him.  Witches and wizards, comparing notes, making appointments, picking up the threads of discussion, were coming through the door.

     "Board of Governors' meeting.  So tiresome, but it's over now, and here you are.  Two strokes of good fortune.  Care to come into Hogsmeade for a drink?"

     "Ah, no.  No, thank you, Lucius."

     "Classes?"

     "No.  Tea with the headmaster at four o'clock."

     "So that's why Dumbledore left so promptly--to prepare for his guest."  Grinning, Malfoy reached over and patted Snape's shoulder.  It was all Snape could do to keep from shrinking away.  "My commiserations, Severus."

     Snape forced a meager smile.  Malfoy drifted off with the rest of the School Governors, down the corridor and to the right, toward the great front door of the castle.

     Snape's eyes went back to the open door of the Governors' Conference Room.  He stood there thinking of Malfoy, tweny-nine years old, only five years older than himself, and already a Governor of Hogwarts, speaking nine months ago of another Governors' meeting.

     "Dumbledore had the gall to sit at the table across from us, the Governors of his school--his employers, for heaven's sake--and try to sell us Lysander Lee as Potions Master of Hogwarts.  No publications, little work experience, mediocre school record, second rate oral exam.  And with a little tepid praise, Dumbledore tosses your application to one side and starts showering his encomiums on Lee.  Lee, who's nothing more than a Qudditch bum!  I couldn't believe it.

     "I couldn't stand for it, either.  I spoke up for you, Severus, then and there.  Not that I had to argue very hard.  Your record speaks for itself.  I only wonder that Dumbledore didn't see it.  What's he got against you?  Besides your being a Slytherin, of course . . . ."

Malfoy had laughed, laughed even at that closing argument which had tangled Snape in his net at last.

     Snape had believed him then, had followed Malfoy, his Death Eater sponsor to the meeting which had led him to Voldemort.

     It wasn't until after he'd felt the Touch, after he'd been accepted into Voldemort's inner circle, that he'd learned the true price of power and recognition.  The lies he'd told to recruit the susceptible, the spells of enslavement and torment to punish the recalcitrant, all with Malfoy smiling at his side like a benevolent older brother.

     Not Avada Kedavra, though.  Snape hadn't killed.  He couldn't.  So far, Malfoy had been happy enough to take over at that point.

     How long before Voldemort noticed?  Would Snape have to die at Voldemort's hands in order to keep from killing for him?

     What a question.  Voldemort favored him.  He was already one of the Ten Commanders . . . .

     And how happy was he about that?

     Snape looked up.  The conference room door was still open. Filch hadn't come yet to pick up and lock up.  Snape could look inside, could see the gleaming oak round table, the straight-backed chairs, the locked lawyer's bookcase that held the minutes of the Governors' meetings.

     The next thing Snape knew, he'd slipped inside the conference room and was staring at the glassed-in case, at three shelves of bound Minutes of the Board of Governors of Hogwarts School for Witches and Wizards.

     Lately--especially since the three-day torment of the MacGregors' interrogation--Snape had begun to wonder.

     Had Malfoy lied to recruit him?  As Snape himself, under Malfoy's tutelage, had learned to tell the well-chosen lie that snapped Voldemort's trap shut on a wavering but promising prospect?

     And if he had, did Snape want to find it out?  What would he do then?  What would the discovery of that lie, piled on top of the loathsome nightmares, the terror that one day he'd have to kill for Voldemort, do to him?

     Before he could think further, before he could grow more afraid, Snape slid his wand out of his pocket.  First he pointed it at the conference room door.

     "Obsera!" he whispered.

     The door closed quietly and the lockbolt slid home.

     Snape turned to the bookcase:  "Aperiretur!"

The glass doors clicked open. Snape stared at the shelves of bound minutes, now available for his reading.

     Snape had been hired at Hogwarts the year before, after a two-year  internship, then three years employed as a Potioner at St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries.  He'd risen to second shift Apothecary by the end of his second year at St. Mungo's, while Lysander Lee had never made it past on-call Potioner at Lazar's, in Hampden, a cheap chain Potions shop in a dim wizarding suburb north of London.  Another reason for Snape's rage at Dumbledore, when Malfoy had told him the story of his recommendation of Lee to the Board of Governors.

     So, if Snape had been hired a year ago, the record of Dumbledore's nefarious presentation of Lee to the Board of Governors would be in the minutes of the meeting for last November.

     Snape found the bound book containing that month's minutes and slid it from the shelf.  He opened it.

     Of course the pages were blank.  A quick fourth-year student could have gotten as far as Snape had, into the bookcase, if he dared.  But Intellectual Property Revelations charms, for obvious reasons, weren't taught until the second semester of seventh year.

     Snape concentrated his power for a moment, then tapped the open book with his wand:  "Patefacienda verba!"

Characters appeared on the page, gleaming like gold leaf for a moment, then darkening to ink-black.

     Snape flipped through the pages until he reached the twelfth of November.  He scanned the secretary's dull report, until he reached the following:

     "Prudence Meed, President of the Board, then solicited Professor Albus Dumbledore's recommendaton of one of the applicants before the Board for the position of Potions Master for the School.  Professor Dumbledore asked that his recommendation be read verbatim into the record.

     "Professor Dumbledore's statement, as follows:

     'All of the applicants have presented with attractive qualifications, but I can recommend only one of them without reserve, and that is Mr. Severus Snape.  His intellectual rigor, his achievements in both the practical and research ends of the discipline of Potions formulation and dispensation, his experience in supervision and intern instruction as Deputy Apothecary at St. Mungo's are unmatched by any of the other applicants.  I want Mr. Snape on my faculty and I sincerely hope and strongly recommend that this Board offer him the position of Potions Master for Hogwarts.'

     "The vote was called after Professor Dumbledore had given his recommendation, and it was unanimously agreed that the Board should offer the aforementioned position at the School to Mr. Snape."

     Dumbledore had recommended Snape, recommended him without reservation.  Which meant that Malfoy had indeed recruited him to Voldemort's Death Eaters with a lie.

     Snape snapped the minutes record shut and shoved it back into the case.  He locked the case and strode out of the conference room and up the marble staircase to Dumbledore's gargoyle gate, so quickly and angrily that his robes swirled and blew behind him like banners flapping in a high wind.

     But the fight drained out of Snape as soon as he was seated in Dumbledore's library.  Dumbledore sat opposite, his clear blue worry-filled eyes searching Snape's face.  His familiar, the phoenix Fawkes, blinked at Snape from his perch in the corner.

     Dumbledore indicated the low table between them, on which rested the tea service and a plate of currant buns.  "Help yourself, Severus.  I just made the tea and the buns have come up from the kitchen, fresh from the ovens.  You look like you could use a little of both."

     Dumbledore made a little of his trademark kindly small talk while the two men served themselves.  Finally, as he was breaking apart a steaming currant bun, Dumbledore asked:

     "How have you been feeling lately, Severus?  Are you well?"

     Snape found he couldn't quite meet Dumbledore's direct, diamond-clear gaze.  "I'm fine, thank you, Headmaster."

     "I'm afraid Madame Pomfrey assesses your health--differently.  And, though I'm no Healer, now that I see you, I have to agree with her."

     Though he managed to meet Dumbledore's eyes, Snape made no answer.

     Dumbledore gave a brief, wry smile.  "I imagine you've guessed she's been to see me.  You've put her quite beside herself, Severus.  She claims you've refused to come for your annual physical."

     "She doesn't need to take up her time with me, Headmaster.  I feel fine."

     "It's a requirement."  Dumbledore's voice was just a tad firmer.

     "I did ask if I could get with her in two weeks to make an appointment.  I'm very busy right now, Headmaster.  I'm deep in research for the Ministry, as you know."

     Dumbledore leaned back, folding his hands in his lap.  "I know.  I also know that you've grown very thin and pale over the last few months.  Though you put on a good show, you almost never finish a meal whenever you eat in hall.  You have shadows under your eyes; have you noticed?  Are you sleeping well?"

     Snape paused a moment, quelling the urge to snap at Dumbledore.  "I'm fine, Headmaster."

     "You haven't answered my question, Severus."  But before Snape could reply, Dumbledore sighed and waved his hand dismissively.  "Never mind.  It's just that I have good news for you, believe it or not.  An offer.  But in order to accept it, you have to be in good health."

     "An offer?"  Snape asked carefully.

     "You've heard, haven't you, that Alexander Bose is retiring at the end of the semester?  He's finishing a book and wants to do some traveling."

     "I'd heard that, yes."

     "I can take his Potions classes until the end of the term," Dumbledore said.  "He'd already cut back on his teaching, so that won't be a burden.  But I need someone for Head of Slytherin House."

     "You're advertising, certainly?"

     "Certainly.  I'm advertising for another Potions Master--don't worry, Severus, I don't expect you to take on Professor Bose's class load!  But Head of House--that's another story."

     "I know of several former Slytherins, experienced Potioners, Headmaster.  Why, I can name three Apothecaries, right off the top of my head, who would be qualified to serve as both Potions Master and Head of House--"

     "No.  I don't want to hire from outside.  Not for Head of House."  Dumbledore fixed Snape with that disconcerting blue gaze.  "I want to promote from within."

     Snape set his teacup down and sagged back in his seat.  He let go of his breath.  "But, Headmaster.  When Professor Bose leaves, I'll be the only Slytherin on the faculty."

     Dumbledore smiled.  "I know, Severus.  You're the only one on the faculty qualified to be Slytherin Head of House.  So, I'd like you to become Slytherin Head of House."

     Snape had let go of his breath.  He felt as though he'd never catch it again.  "Headmaster . . ."

     "I think it would be a good thing, both for you and the Slytherin students.  Alexander Bose, though he inspires respect, even awe, well . . . he's older than most of the students' parents, older even than some of their grandparents.  And not at all--confiding or inviting.  That's not to say he hasn't been a good, a dutiful Head of House.  But the Head takes the place of the child's parent while he or she is at school."  Dumbledore paused.  "I don't think it's too much to ask of a Head that he love his students.  I've been lucky in that most of mine have.  I think it comes naturally to them.  I think it will come naturally to you, Severus.  In your classes, you've shown that feeling of responsibility and high expectations of your students that I look for in a teacher.  So I think this advancement, this next step would be good for you as well as for your House.  I think you'd learn to show the other side of love:  the caring, the listening, the helping.  As Master, you've learned how to make that most impressive brain of yours available to your students.  As Head, you'd learn how to give your heart to them.  And to accept theirs in return."

     Snape still couldn't catch his breath.  And now his heart was battering his ribs.  Sweat dampened his brow and prickled at his nape.  Head of House.  It was what he had wanted.

     And what He wanted.

     "You're such a good recruiter, Severus.  So many of my Death Eaters are prizes you've brought to me.  Why, you almost snagged Remus Lupin.  I still have hopes for him, thanks to you.

     "If you could become Head of Slytherin . . . solving the students' problems, drying their tears . . . ."  Voldemort looked at him curiously.  "Do you think you could do that?"

     "I will do anything to serve you."

     "Of course you will.  You'll comfort your Slytherins because you're one of them.  You'll train them, you'll lead them to a new way.  Or to a very old way.  From Dumbledore's way to that of their founder, Salazar.  To their leader.  To me.

     "If I ever become Head of House, my lord."

     "You will, because you want it.  And you always get what you want.  You wanted me, after all.  And now you have me."

     He always knew.  And he knew how to make the warmth, the power surge in Snape's blood.  "Yes, my lord."

I will do anything.  I'll turn Lupin, torment the MacGregors for three days straight, into insanity.  I'll give you children away from home for the first time, youths about to embark on life's journey.  I'll make Hogwarts a conduit to Lord Voldemort's service. . . . .

"Great heavens, Severus!  What is the matter with you?"

     Snape blinked.  Dumbledore's face sharpened into focus right before him.  The Headmaster's eyes were on fire with fear.  He shoved a steaming cup into Snape's hand.  "Here.  Drink this."

     Snape stared down at the cup, breathed in a warm, spicy aroma.

     "It's just tea," Dumbledore said.  "But it's my tea, so it has some virtue.  Drink it."

     Snape drank the cup down.  Strength coursed through him, warming his cold clamminess, quieting the trembling in his limbs.

     Dumbledore was leaning forward, elbows on knees, blue stare boring into Snape like wandlight, or a Muggle laser beam.

     "Now tell me what is wrong with you.  A physical illness?  Or something more?"

     "Nothing's wrong, Head--"

     Dumbledore slapped his hand on the table.  The silver tinkled and the cups shook.  "You're lying, Severus.  I won't have it."  He took his hand off the table, rested it beside the other in his lap.  "I don't want to withdraw my offer.  I'm sure you could be right as Head of Slytherin.  But you must tell me what is wrong.  If it's something private, personal, I swear to you it won't go past these doors.  And when you leave here, you must go immediately to the infirmary.  You are ill, there's no use trying to deny it.  With what. . . .I don't know."

     Snape sprang to his feet and with a swirl of his robes turned his back on Dumbledore and went to the window.  He stared outside, but there was nothing to see in the late autumn twilight but the shapes of trees and the neat mounds of mulch in the sleeping gardens.

     "You're shaking, Severus," Dumbledore's quiet voice said behind him.  "Please tell me what's wrong."

     Snape set his jaw, folded his arms across his chest and turned back to Dumbledore.  "I'm sorry, Headmaster, but I must decline your very kind offer.  I--I can't be Head of Slytherin House."

     "I think you ought to be Head of Slytherin House.  Why do you think you can't?"

     "I can't--" hand children over to him.  Snape stopped, feeling as though he was about to choke.  "I can't go for a physical."

     "Why?"

     "I can't.  I won't."

     "Do you mean you refuse?"

     Snape dropped his eyes, unable to face that kind yet implacable gaze.  "If you like."

     "I don't like.  Because if you refuse to meet a requirement for employment here, I must place you on administrative leave."

     "Do it, then."  Snape's voice fell to a whisper.  "Please."

     "Severus!  Why won't you go to the infirmary when you're so obviously ill?  Why do you turn down a position you know you're qualified for and we both know you want?"

     Snape stared in silence at the rug beneath the chairs and tea table.  He shook as if with with fever.  Damp tendrils of hair clung to his sweating face.

     Tell him.  Tell him whose you are, said a cold voice inside his head.

     And take the consequences like a man, said another, warmer voice.  Snape was in agony, torn between them like a witch drawn and quartered during the Muggle Inquisition.

     Snape silenced the voices, emptied his mind as harsh experience had taught him to do.  Still looking down, he stretched out his trembling left arm.  Slowly he rolled up the robesleeve.  He unbuttoned the sleeve of the frock coat he wore beneath his robe.  Then his shirt cuff.  He rolled up his shirt and coat sleeves, slid them up past the elbow.  He lifted his eyes just enough to look at the mark branded into the flesh, just below the concavity of his elbow.  A skull with a snake twisting out of its mouth.  Black, now.  Quiescent, but stark against his pale skin.

     He stared at the Dark Mark and waited.

     For long moments there was silence.  Then Snape heard a sound out of Dumbledore he'd never heard before, half-moan, half-whisper:  "No . . . no."

     Snape looked up.  Dumbledore was leaning on his elbow on the arm of his chair, head bowed, eyes hidden in his hand, body shrinking against the chair back.

     Snape's stomach lurched at the sight of the most powerful wizard in the world, the hero of the wizarding wars, looking as though--what? he cowered in terror? shriveled in despair?

     Snape let his arm drop to his side again.  The sleeve cuffs fell to his wrist.  He didn't bother to button them before he started for the door.  "I'll clean out my desk, Headmaster, while you call the Ministry."

     "Stop!"

     Dumbledore's voice held an unmistakable note of command.  Snape stopped.

     "Come, Severus.  Sit back down."  Dumbledore's voice was normal again, though quiet and a bit unsteady.  Snape didn't turn.

     "Don't you want to call the Ministry, Headmaster, so that they can send Aurors to arrest me?"

     "No.  I want you to sit back down."

     "It would be better now, Headmaster.  The students are in their Houses, they won't see.  Better than the morning--"

     "Didn't you hear me, Severus?  I said sit down."

     Snape obeyed.  He sat down, cradled his left arm in his lap and began to button up his sleeves.

     "No.  I want to see it."

     Snape looked up.  Dumbledore had risen and stepped toward him.  His face looked set in stone, but his eyes were large and dark.  Snape pushed his sleeves back above his elbow and looked away again.

     Dumbledore's shadow fell over Snape, and when he spoke, his voice sounded soft and very near.  "I shouldn't touch it, should I?"

     "No, please don't.  He'll know."

     "Yes.  He'll know."

     The shadow fell away again as Dumbledore rose, but the fading twilight gave only a little more light.  Slowly, half-fearfully, Snape lifted his eyes.  Dumbledore, who often didn't need his wand, glanced at the wall sconces and the hearth.  The candles lit up and fire flashed to life in the fireplace.

     "Cover it now, Severus," Dumbledore said.

     Snape buttoned his cuffs at his wrist and smoothed his robesleeve over his left forearm.

     "When will you call the Ministry, Headmaster?" he asked without looking up.

     "They'll send you to Azkaban and the Dementors will eat up your mind.  In six months, you'll be mad.  Are you so eager for that?"

     "I'm a Death Eater," Snape whispered.  "Isn't that what we Death Eaters deserve?"

     For a moment, Dumbledore didn't answer.  Then he said, "How long have you belonged to Voldemort?"

     "Since March.  March 15th."

     "Nine months.  And in all that time, I never knew.  I never even suspected."  Dumbledore's voice fell.  "I didn't think that was possible."

     Snape said nothing.  The silence stretched out.

     "Why don't you look at me, Severus?" Dumbledore asked.  "Can you look at me?"

     Snape tried.  For a moment, he met the steady, curious, piercing-blue eyes.  Dumbledore had control of himself again.  But that was all Snape could take.  With a trembling sigh, he dropped his eyes again.

     "I see."  Dumbledore said.  He rose.  Snape watched the hem of his robe swishing behind him as he slowly paced around the room.  He stopped in front of the fire.  "Why did you confess this to me today?"

     "The physical.  Pomfrey.  She'd see the Dark Mark."

     "Ah, yes."  Dumbledore waited.

     Snape rubbed his face, then ran his hand through his hair, pushing it back.  It fell forward again, and he gave up.  "The offer.  Head of Slytherin House.  I couldn't . . . I can't accept it.  You asked why."

     "I ask again.  Why?"

     Snape jerked his head up, looked angrily, challengingly into Dumbledore's face.  "Why won't you understand!"  He stopped, drew a breath and lowered his voice.  "Don't you see?  I can't give him children."

     "Severus . . . ."  Dumbledore sat back down.  "What can you do for him?  What have you done?"

     Snape clenched his hands together in his lap, stared at the white knuckles, the corded veins.  "Training.  Many of his servants are weak witches and wizards, whom he lures with the promise of power.  But they don't know how to use the power he gives them, so I teach them."

     "Of course.  You're a fine teacher.  And you're a very powerful wizard."  Dumbledore paused.  "Is that all?"

     No.  Of course it wasn't all.  "No.  I recruit.  Lord Voldemort sends me out to likely prospects, and I attempt to persuade them to join him."  Snape sat watching his knees tremble through another short silence.

     "That would seem to me to be a very sensitive assignment," Dumbledore said.  "You must be high in his trust."

     Out with it.  "I'm one of the Ten Commanders."

     "Really?" Dumbledore said softly.  "Are you really?  After only nine months in his service?"

     Snape nodded.

     "Did you know that two months ago Voldemort sent three Death Eaters to the north of Scotland to recruit Remus Lupin?"

     Snape waited before answering.  He put his fear and guilt away, into the back of his heart, as he had learned to do.  Then he raised his eyes and looked Dumbledore straight in the face.  "Yes."

     Dumbledore looked directly back.  "How did you learn it?  Did Voldemort tell you?"

     "No, Headmaster.  That is, he didn't report it to me.  He ordered me to do it.  I led the team."

     "So Remus was right."  Dumbledore seemed enthralled.  "You wore the Death Eater's mask, and your voice was potions-controlled.  But Remus said the leader reminded him of you."

     "It was I, Headmaster."

     "He said you nearly won him over," Dumbledore went on dreamily.  "You chose the right time.  He was on the road, fired from another job, run out of another little village.  Penniless again, rejected again, out in the cold again.  And you offered him shelter, warmth, acceptance with Voldemort.  Do you know how close you came to taking one of the strongest, most stalwart wizards I've ever known?"

     "Yes."

     Dumbledore blinked, as if startled by Snape's bluntness.  "Is that why you let him go?"  The question seemed surprised out of him.  "Because you knew that if you kept it up, you'd have him?"

     Snape averted his eyes at last.  "I didn't want him.  So I told him I'd give him time to think about it."

     "You gave him time--!  And how on earth did you explain that course of action to Voldemort?"

     Still studying the floor, Snape shrugged.  "As you say, Headmaster, Lupin's a strong wizard.  I convinced Voldemort of that.  I said Lupin was a very big fish and we had to reel him in carefully."

     "And he took your advice.  The advice of a twenty-four-year old wizard who's only been with him nine months."

     Snape looked up, challenging again.  "You don't believe me?"

     Dumbledore studied him.  "On the contrary, Severus, I believe every word you've said.  So you advise Voldemort, too.  On recruitment alone?"

     "No.  On other things, too."

     "Such as?"

     How did Dumbledore manuever him so easily?  Or had he just reached the point where he wanted to tell everything?

     "I help him decide what to do with the people I know."

     "What does that mean?"

     Snape sighed.  "Well, to take an example from a couple of months ago, just before I attempted to recruit Lupin.  Lord Voldemort called me to him, to ask my opinion on what we ought to do about some people he was considering.  Whether we ought to try to recruit them.  Or whether we ought not to take the time and trouble, and simply kill them."

     Dumbledore's eyes darkened with shock.  "Who were these people?"

     "Well, Lupin, of course."  Snape dropped his eyes.

     "Look at me.  Lupin and who else?"

     Snape looked at him.  "Lupin, Sirius Black and James Potter."

     Dumbledore took that in.  "And what was your advice?"

     "Lupin, I said we ought to recruit.  I wasn't sure about Black, so I suggested we observe him for a while longer."  Snape stopped.

     "And James Potter?" Dumbledore said softly.

     Snape's eyes traveled over the tea table.  The swirling woodgrain.  The pot, the cups.  The plate of buns he hadn't touched.  They rose to the folds of Dumbldore's robes, draping from his knees to the floor.  That far, but no further.

     "I said we should kill him."

     The phoenix beat the air a couple of times with his wings.  The sound was like a short, sharp gust of wind.  For what seemed a very long time, Dumbledore remained silent.

     "Just like that," he said then.

     What was I supposed to do!  You don't know what it's like, when he pins you down with those serpent's eyes, that red stare, like evil wandlight!

     Snape forced his eyes upward.  No explanation would do, no excuse would appease.  "No, not 'just like that.'  But I did say it."  How calm and quiet Dumbledore's face was!  Was he forcing himself to hear, just as Snape was forcing himself to speak?  "Voldemort has sensed Potter's power and his purity for a long time.  There's no handle for him in Potter's soul.  How could I claim that there was?  And now Potter and Lily have a son.  A child, whose power is of greater strength than that of his parents combined.  A power whose quality, Voldemort says, is different from any other he's ever sensed before.  He'll kill them both, father and child, he says, with his own wand, his own hands, and take their power into himself."  Snape fell silent.  Was Dumbledore trembling?  "You must warn them, Headmaster.  Potter, his wife and their son must go into hiding at once."

     "Yes, yes.  I'll go to them myself, I'll tell--"  Dumbledore broke off.  His voice turned hard.  "You must have served Voldemort very well, to have earned such confidences from him.  That he'd kill a wizard with his own hands!  He wouldn't say that to just anyone.  Surely you know!"  Dumbledore leaned forward.  His eyes were edged steel.  "You're not yet twenty-five.  You've served him for less than a year.  What have you done, to make him prize you so?  Not merely teaching.  Nor even persuasion!"

     "I'm not sure I understand you, Headmaster."

     "He's bound you to him.  Or you've bound yourself.  Have you cast any of the Evil Curses in his service?"

     So that was it.  "Yes," Snape said.

     "Which ones?  Imperius?"

     "Yes."

     Dumbledore's voice dropped a note.  "Cruciatus?"

     "Yes."

     Dumbledore drew a quick breath.  He let it out in a sigh.  Fire- and candlelight danced over his face, lighting up the wide, round eyes that he kept fixed on Snape.  "On whom?"

     "Mellitus and Sylvia MacGregor."

     Dumbledore sprang to his feet and strode about the room.  "My God, my God," he muttered.  "You can't be the one who--"

     "But I am," Snape said.  "Malfoy tried--he was there--but he didn't have the power."

     Dumbledore stopped, turned to Snape and stared.  "Severus, you drove them mad!  Their minds are broken!  They'll never leave St. Mungo's!"

     "I know.  Do you see now why you must call the Ministry?"

     Snape didn't know what strength had kept him facing Dumbledore through that confession, but suddenly it failed him.  He sagged against the chairback and closed his eyes.  When he opened them, Dumbledore was standing over him.  The look on his face made Snape's throat go dry.  He tensed and straightened.

     "I have one more question to ask you, Severus," Dumbledore said.

     He spoke in spell-tones.  Snape knew it by the dizzying warmth that entered his mind, the retreat of his defenses before Dumbledore's irrestible, implacable, war-bell voice.  Not violent, not painful.  Subtle, yet strong.  Voldemort was nothing like this.  Snape stared back at Dumbledore in yielding silence.

     "If you lie, I'll know it," Dumbledore went on.  "You'll go straight from here to Azkaban.  Do you understand?  I'll have no choice."

     Snape nodded.

     "Have you ever killed in Voldemort's service?  With your hands, without magic?"

     "No."

     The flow that was Dumbledore coursed through Snape's bloodstream to every cell in his body, wove itself around every tendril in his mind.  It grew warmer, almost hot, more urgent in its pulsing search.

     "Have you ever cast the Killing Curse in his service?  Have you ever cast Avada Kedavra?"

     Snape caught his breath.  Sweat dampened his forehead and upper lip.  "No."

     "Why not?"

     "I can't. . . I can't."  Snape gasped for breath.  It didn't hurt.  This wasn't Voldemort in him.  But it was so hard to speak over the Dumbledore-flow, when it took apart every syllable as soon as it appeared in his mind, wrapped itself, searching, around every wordless thought.

     Suddenly, though, the flow released him, turned back on itself, receded from his mind.  With a deep sigh, Snape closed his eyes.   He mopped his face with his robesleeve and blinked.

     Dumbledore bent over him.  Worry and remorse filled his eyes.

"I'm sorry, Severus.  Please forgive me."  He took Snape's hand, and Snape felt a liquid coolness, like a balm, fill all the inward corners which the hot Dumbledore-flow had flooded moments before.

     Dumbledore released his hand and sat back down.  "I had to know.  My first duty is to defend the school.  Hogwarts is one of the few safe places left in the world; I couldn't let someone tainted with the Killing Curse stay here."

     "Of course, Headmaster.  You have nothing to apologize for."

     Dumbledore refilled Snape's teacup and handed it to him.  He poured another for himself.  "Now," he said, after sitting back and taking a sip.  "What to do with you?"

     Snape wrapped his hands around the warm teacup, but still he shivered.  Azkaban and the Dementors.  It was where people like him always ended up.  He couldn't pretend bewitchment now, even if he wanted to.  Dumbledore had searched him.  Dumbledore knew.

     "No, Severus," Dumbledore said gently.  "Not Azkaban.  You've come to me freely and confessed what you've done.  You've told me the truth, as hard as I've made that for you.  Do you think I would throw a wizard of your virtue, your power and discernment, to a pack of mindless ghouls?"

     "How can you do otherwise?" Snape said unsteadily.  "I'm a suspected Death Eater.  You have to hand me over to the Ministry of Magic; that's the law.  I'll be tried and found guilty, because I'll confess to them as I have to you.  I'll be sentenced to years--decades--in Azkaban."

     He had refused to think of it before, for fear he'd lose the nerve to come to Dumbledore.  Now he did think of it, and shuddered with terror.

     "No.  I have a better use for you.  And so will the Ministry, even Fudge will see that.  But you must want to atone for what you've done, and you must gather up that great courage of yours to do it."

     Snape looked up.  There was not only kindness in Dumbledore's eyes, but a twinkle of triumph.

     Could he hope to be spared?  Did he dare to hope for it?

     "Please--tell me more, Headmaster."

     A grim smile spread slowly across Dumbledore's features.  "Do you know, Severus--can you imagine--how long and fervently the Subministry for Criminal Investigations has longed to find an effective mole whom they could send to Voldemort?  Not a Commander--not an Inner Councillor--just anyone they could put inside Voldemort's camp?"

     "As a matter of fact, Headmaster, I do.  I've seen two people try and fail to take the Dark Mark, who later confessed under torture that they were Aurors sent by the Ministry to infiltrate the ranks of the Death Eaters."

     Dumbledore's expression grew sober.  "Then you know the possible consequences of what I'm about to ask you to do."

     "Ask it anyway, Headmaster.  Please," Snape said softly.

     "Very well.  I take it Voldemort doesn't know you're here telling me all this?"

     "No.  If he'd found out, I'd be dead."

     "Right.  So I'm asking you not to let him find out.  Not to go on trial at the Ministry, but to go back to him.  Seeming to be his servant, his spy at Hogwarts, as before.  But actually as a counterspy for the Ministry of Magic.  As my agent.  I'll take over the responsibility of running you."

     "Of course I'll do it, Headmaster."

     "Not so fast, Severus.  It won't be easy.  It will be very dangerous.  You can never kill for Voldemort.  Sooner or later, he will insist upon it.  But you must not do it."

     "Malfoy will do it," Snape said.

     "I heard you mention him before.  He's a Death Eater, is he?"

     "He's my sponsor.  We almost always work together."

     "I'm not surprised."

     "He'll kill.  He always does.  He enjoys it."

     "Lucius Malfoy."  A name, vital, essential, as names always were.  Dumbledore enunciated it carefully.  "Let him kill, then, if he will, Severus.  Let him damn himself.  But that doesn't release you from obedience to my next order.  You must also avoid the use of the other Evil Curses, as much as possible.  They, too, poison the soul, though not like Avada Kedavra.  You must not use them unless the avoidance will immediately result in your own death or discovery.  And if you do have to use them, you must end the use as soon as you can, and counter them, if you can.  Then you must justify each use to me and to Alastor Moody, the Head of the Aurors' Special Unit at the Criminal Investigations Subministry.  I warn you:  neither of us will go easy on you."

     "I understand, Headmaster."

     "And you agree?"

     "I will do anything to serve you."

     Dumbledore looked at him strangely.  "You say that to him, too, don't you?"

     Snape didn't answer.  And yet, when Dumbledore stood up, came over to him, and, kneeling before him, placed his hand over Snape's heart, Snape didn't resist.  He shuddered as something hot and sharp, like a molten knife, searing yet utterly pain-free, plunged into his heart.  But he didn't fight.

     Dumbledore stared at him in wonder, his hand still pressing Snape's breast.  "Your heart, Severus," he whispered.  "It has two chambers.  Two rooms.  One you furnish and keep for me.  And one--for him."

     Snape gazed into the blue depths, the limitless ocean of Dumbledore's eyes.  "Yes, Headmaster.  You are right."

     Dumbledore looked down at Snape's left forearm, where the Dark Mark lay covered with robe.coat and shirtsleeve.  Then he looked back into Snape's eyes.  "Him.  And me.  That's why you can do it.  That's why you could take the Mark.  And why you can confess truthfully to me.  That's why you can go back to him.  As an agent for his deadliest enemy.  One heart.  Two rooms.  I've never seen anything like it.  You love him.  And me."

     Not a heart, though, Snape thought, as Snape had always thought.    A scar, a great fist-sized scar, covered with hard, tough tissue.  A fortified bunker with two rooms.

     "Severus?"

     Dumbledore called him by his name, his vital and essential name.  Severus:  the hard man, the harsh and unyielding man.

     "I'll call Fudge then, Severus.  Right now, if that's all right with you?  I'll tell him about our proposal.  I'm sure I can get him and Moody to agree."

     Snape bowed his head, yielding in gratitude and relief.  "Yes, Headmaster.  Tell him.  Please."


End file.
